NURSING LAW

Nursing Law

Nursing Law

Currently the importance of ethics in medicine and healthcare is socially emphasized, and whether or not a medical institution provides sufficient ethics education for its employees has a strong influence on evaluation of the institution by third-party groups. However, opportunities are still lacking for healthcare professionals to sufficiently learn ethics relating to medicine and healthcare (Freidson 2002). The root cause of the deficiency is that ethics has been given low priority among the many educational items set by medical institutions and accordingly, educational resources such as time and staff are seldom allocated adequately (Freidson 2002).

In U.S. there is a growing concern about this issue. It has caused approximately 19 million public lawsuits (Hood and Leddy 2003). Although the malpractice crisis in the healthcare organization is a small part of the lawsuits, but it poses an unnerving threat to the healthcare professionals, organizations and other parties associated to this industry. Therefore, the healthcare system in the country should be regulated by strict governmental and legal policies.

Professional Nursing Laws

The laws applicable to professional nursing are common law, civil law and public law.

Common Law: Law may be classified according to the Court in which it was first instituted. The federal courts and 49 state courts follow the common law of England (Alexander 2002). Common law is defined as law derived from principles rather than rules and regulations. It is based on justice, reason, and common sense. During the colonial period, the English common law was uniformly applied in the 13 original colonies (Alexander 2002). After the American Revolution, individual states adopted various parts of the common law, and differences in interpretation and enforcement began that still exist to this day. Individual state statutory and judicial findings also account for the variation of common law principles from state to state.

Civil Law: Louisiana elected to adopt civil or Napoleonic laws, because the origins of that state were of a predominantly French influence. Derived from the civil laws of the French, Romans, and Spaniards, Napoleonic or civil law may be said to be based on rules and regulations (Alexander 2002).

Public Law: is the branch of law concerned with the state in its political capacity. The relationship of a person to the state is at the crux of public law. Perhaps the best example of public law is the entire field of criminal law (Alexander 2002).

Statutes of Limitations

Statutes of limitations, procedural law time frames, are essentially time intervals during which a case must be filed or the injured party is barred (prevented legally) from bringing the lawsuit (Buccini, Iverson, Caputi, Jones and Gho 2009). Statutes of limitation establish a time frame within which a suit must be brought. Set by the state legislature, most states allow 1 to 2 years for the tiling of a. personal injury lawsuit. The majority of the stares do not: begin measuring time until the injured party has actually discovered the injury that will become the basis of the ensuing lawsuit (Buccini, Iverson, Caputi, Jones ...